The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) on Tuesday announced its decision to appropriate hundreds of dunums of Palestinian land in Kisan village east of Bethlehem.
Local official Hasan Bureijiya said that the IOA claimed that it plans to turn this seized vast tract of land in the southeast of the village into a nature reserve.
The land is private property belonging to the Palestinian family of Awadallah.
Bureijiya affirmed that such decision is only aimed at annexing Palestinian-owned lands in Kisan village to the illegal settlement of Ibei Hanahal.
In a related incident Jewish settlers on the same day embarked on building a road for themselves on seized swaths of land in Kisan village.
Deputy head of the village council Ahmed Ghazal said that Ibei Hanahal settlers started to build a road (two kilometers long and four meters wide) in a hilly area overlooking Wadi al-Hajjar (valley) to the northwest of the village.
Ghazal added that the road is aimed at connecting the settlement of Ibei Hanahal with the industrial settlement that was built on annexed lands belonging to local residents in the west of the village.
Recently Ibei Hanahal settlers uprooted all the olives trees in the area as a prelude to building the road.
